How to respond to online reviews of your business

Marieke van de Rakt is the founder of Yoast Academy and CEO of Yoast. Her favorite SEO topics are SEO copywriting and site structure.

Online reviews are important for any local business. They’ve become essential in local search strategies. Having positive reviews and ratings will help in attracting traffic, both to your website as well as to your local business. Should you respond to positive reviews? And what about the negative ones? Here, I’ll give you lots of tips on how to respond to online reviews of your business.

Importance of online reviews

For customers, online reviews are critical. Every one of us would check out reviews before booking that expensive holiday home in the south of France. Online reviews are also important for your SEO. There’s an overall consensus among SEO experts about reviews being a ranking factor for local search. You should read the article David Mihm wrote for Yoast for more information on the impact of reviews on your local rankings. Or learn how to grow your business with ratings and reviews.

Why should you react to reviews?

Reviews tell what other people, your customers, think of your product. If you respond to reviews, you show your (potential) customers that you care about their opinion. And that’s something your customers will appreciate. Apart from that, responding to reviews will make your business stand out from other companies, as a lot of them do not make an effort to respond to their reviews.

If you write a response to a review, you’ll not be only writing to the person who wrote the review. Your response will be out there for all potential customers. Handling reviews with grace, gratitude and a little bit of wit, can have a huge impact on the way people perceive your brand.

To which reviews should you respond?

Reacting to reviews appears to be a wise thing to do. That does not mean you should respond to every single review. In my opinion, you should react to negative reviews. Responding to negative reviews will show potential customers how you handle problems and solve solutions to dissatisfied customers.

I would also react to very positive reviews, especially if the response it elaborate and detailed. Responding to positive reviews will give the opportunity to promote your brand and to show your passion for your company. Responding to positive reviews is not that hard to do. It’s the negative ones that need a strategy.

How to respond to reviews?

How do you respond to those negative reviews? What should you do and which pitfalls should you avoid? I’ll share seven tips on how to handle those negative reviews!

1. Keep Calm

It’s never easy to get a negative review. In some cases, it can feel unfair. Perhaps the tone of the review is harsh, personal or condescending. Your first reaction will most likely be an emotional one. Perhaps you’ll get angry or very frustrated. In such a case, it’s wise to take a moment before you write your response.

2. Have a plan

Negative comments and reviews will always come up at one point in time. It’s a good thing to prepare yourself for it. You could have some standard replies ready. Be careful never to use the same answer more than once. Always adapt a reply to the specifics the situation requires. Having some nicely drafted sentences ready can help you to formulate the response in the heat of the moment.

3. Own the problem

A negative response means that someone has had a negative experience with your business. Maybe they didn’t like the food you served in your restaurant. Of course, this could be due to their lack of taste, but such a response will not be satisfying to your potential audience. In most cases, start with apologizing for their negative experience, even if it’s not (entirely) your fault. You are sorry that they had a negative experience. You are sorry the food did not taste good.

If something went wrong because of a mistake on your site, tell people that, own up to your mistake and apologize for it. If someone did not get their dessert and is pissed off about that, investigate the specifics of the situation. Did you, in fact, forget about their dessert? Admit to your mistake, apologize and try to fix the problem. In this case, invite them back to have dessert another time.

Everyone makes mistakes and people are really forgiving if you are willing to show your human side. Own up to your mistakes, apologize and try to come up with a solution.

4. Let someone proofread your response

You’re never an objective author of responses to reviews. You’re involved; what might sound reasonable to you, might sound crazy aggressive to someone else. If you’re not sure about your response, letting someone else read it first (someone objective) can be a good idea.

5. Short and sweet

Don’t write responses that are too lengthy. Make them short and sweet. Nobody wants to read through a reply of thirteen paragraphs. Even if someone personally insults you in a review, you should never get personal. Try to remain professional and polite, at all times.

6. Don’t get trapped in long discussion

Never get trapped in lengthy discussions. Reply once, maybe twice if necessary, but stop replying after that. Nobody wants to read a complete discussion between a dissatisfied customer and a business. Or maybe some people do like to read such a thing, but it does not reflect well on your business.

7. Take the discussion offline

Someone had a bad experience with your business and you can solve it? Try to contact them outside of the review-channel. Ask them to get in touch with your sales department, or invite them over to your restaurant. Did people not get their dessert? Invite them over to your restaurant. People can’t get in touch with your support department? Help them to make a connection.

After the response?

If you have had some negative responses, you’ll probably want to bury them underneath a big pile of positive ones. Maybe you’ll encounter customers that have positive experiences. By all means, invite them to leave a review. Research shows that a lot of people are willing to do that!

If you can solve the problem with a dissatisfied customer, you can also ask if they can edit or remove their review. You should only do that if the air is clear between the customer and your business.

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11 Responses to How to respond to online reviews of your business

John • 2 years ago

You should definitely pay close attention to reviews, both good and bad, completely agreed. Nicely written, thanks.

Amit Ramani • 2 years ago

How about a situation where your competition has hired a “Social Media Firm” that maligns your business by writing negative reviews? Even after flagging them as Inappropriate multiple times, Google My Business team does not remove the review.

What is the worst part is that a few days after the negative review has been posted, I receive a phone call from some “Social Media Firm” that promises to get the review removed.

The authenticity of the negative review is suspect when we see a 5 star positive review left by the same “person/bot” for our competition on the same day, a few hours apart.

WWE Hindi • 2 years ago

Thanks for telling me this amazing guide and I hope you will also tell me on future.

Matt • 2 years ago

Great article. Responding to reviews can be the unseen jewel of the entire concept of reviews… responses show you care what people think and say about your product or service.

Edwin Toonen • 2 years ago

That’s it, Matt!

Rogério • 2 years ago

Never thought that reviews could be a ranking factor for Google. So I always look forward to the YOAST articles

mp3 • 2 years ago

It doesnt really matter about the review…I think just trying to give good valued content or products is key to a successful business..

ankit raghuwanshi • 2 years ago

In most cases, users are ended up with leaving their links to their pages, and they actually comment with such grace as they like our article or product, it doesn’t sound senseful at all. But with me it’s vice-versa, I crawled on this website by typing something on Google relevant to “SEO Index attachment URL” and read here around four to five articles including this one, And this led me to post a comment. Currently, I’m struggling with a Good writing skill, So I need to learn more and more to hone my writing ability, and I think your blog manifests the user-friendliness and cares about their verdicts. I urge you that Keep coming up with many great ideas to help folks improve their way of doing SEO. Thank you.

Gilla • 2 years ago

I did reply to a negative review, and I agree with you Marieke, I was angry and very frustrated, after all my good work, I got a very bad review. It was three months ago, I thought to tell my customers the truth rather than calming the negative reviewer. So now after reading your this post, I think I need to modify my reply and writing something that not ruin my brand. Thank you, Marieke for this helpful post.

Edwin Toonen • 2 years ago

Yeah, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. Take a step back, breathe and write a well-thought-out response. Good luck, Gilla.